New Conference: Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law and Policy’s Virtual Symposium April 1, 2022, 1 pm – 5:15 pm eastern. Registration here. Details below:
2022 Symposium: Community Poverty and the University
Tentative Schedule
-1:00: Opening remarks (Peter Edelman)
-1:15-2:15: Keynote Address: The Miseducation of Public Citizens (keynote speaker: Etienne Touissant)
-2:20-3:20: Panel 1: Universities as Educators and Community Poverty (panelists: CJ Powell, Katherine Broton, Winston Berkman-Breen, moderator: Vincent Palacios)
-3:30-4:30: Panel 2: The Role of Universities in Community Development (panelists: Anthony Cook, Anita Brown Graham, Sabine O’Hara, moderator: Caitlin Cocilova)
-4:35-5:15: Panel 3: Universities as Employers and Labor Rights (Mark Pearce)
The Georgetown Journal of Poverty Law & Policy’s Volume 29 Symposium will be framed
around the role of universities as producers, managers, and opponents of poverty in local
communities, especially in light of the social changes and challenges of the COVID-19
pandemic.
Across the country, universities hold significant influence in local communities due to their function as educators, service-providers, employers, private law enforcement, property owners, and investment vehicles. Universities provide important educational programming to their student body, produce invaluable academic research, and often provide services to their neighboring communities. At the same time, over 4,000 universities employ sworn officers as campus police – usually armed – with expansive authority but without equivalent public reporting requirements as municipal police. Many universities generate more revenue from real estate ownership and endowment investment than educational services such as tuition and fees. In two-thirds of America’s hundred largest cities as well as multiple states, a university is the largest single employer. Some universities’ tax-exempt status has transformed them into an investment opportunity free of restrictions imposed on other private foundations. These various roles, combined with their productive and cultural value, give the modern university the opportunity to engage with city and state politicians and drive policy around diverse areas from zoning and land use, labor and employment, law enforcement, emergency management, and many others. It is critical to discover new and different roles that universities can play, examine best practices and models for university engagement with communities, and identify opportunities for universities to challenge poverty.
Poverty Law 